This invention relates generally to earrings, and more particularly to pierced earrings of the type conventionally comprising an ornament having a post extending therefrom and passing through a pierced opening in the wearer's lobe, with clutch means provided at the free end of the post to maintain the earring on the wearer's ear.
In recent years pierced earrings have become increasingly popular, because they are less likely to become inadvertently detached from the wearer's lobe and lost than are conventional screw-back or pressure-clip earrings. This, of course, becomes a more important factor with earrings of anything more than minimal monetary value. However, one of the more dramatic shortcomings of pierced earrings is the fact that the wearer's lobe frequently becomes irritated or infected by the repeated penetration of the metallic post through the pierced lobe of the wearer even where the post is constructed of a hypoallergenic material, such as surgical steel or gold.
The prior art has recognized this problem and has attempted to overcome same by providing a nontoxic plastic protector that slides over the metallic earring post or ear wire that extends through the wearer's lobe so that the ear lobe does not make direct contact with the metallic post or wire, but rather contacts only the plastic sleeve. The patent to IVEY U.S. Pat. No. 4,067,341 dated Jan. 10, 1978 illustrates this concept; and while this approach has met with some degree of success, it has the obvious shortcomings of involving a separate member, i.e., the plastic sleeve, which may become lost or misplaced, plus the problem of insuring that the plastic sleeve is properly positioned on the post or wire so as to prevent the wearer's lobe from making direct contact with the latter.
Another approach to this problem is to make the post of a nontoxic plastic and to use a plastic clutch, whereupon there is no metal member so that can be engaged by the wearer's lobe. The patent to CUVAR U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,540 discloses such a pierced earring assembly, it being noted in the CUVAR patent that the plastic post is provided with an enlarged flange or base at one end thereof that is adapted to be secured by cementing or the like to the inner surface of the earring ornament. The problem with this type of arrangement is that although the flange or base can be effectively secured to the inner surface of the ornament where said inner surface is flat, such is not the case where the inner surface of the ornament is of a curved configuration, because it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to effectively secure a flat base or flange to a curved surface. And while the CUVAR patent recognizes this problem and suggests that the base or flange be shaped or curved so as to conform to the curvature of the inner surface of the ornament, this obviously is not feasible because there is no end to the number of different shapes or curvatures that may characterize the inner surface of the ornament.